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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoK.M. Chaudary | Associated PressA Pakistani soldier stands guard atop a vehicle outside a building in Lahore where election materials were being transferred to polling locations.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan goes to the polls today for an election that will bring the first
transition between civilian governments, but the milestone’s significance might be lost on some
voters who have lost faith in politics after years of corruption and misrule.

Widespread disenchantment with the two mainstream parties appeared this week to have brought a
late surge of support for former cricket star Imran Khan, who could end up holding the balance of
power if there is no clear winner.

If that happens, weeks of haggling to form a coalition will follow and raise the risk of an
unstable government in a country ruled by the military for more than half of its history.

That would only make it more difficult to reverse the disgust with politicians felt among the
country’s 180 million people and drive through the reforms needed to revive its near-failed
economy.

Dozens of people have been killed in the run-up to the vote by the al-Qaida-linked Pakistan
Taliban, which regards the voting as un-Islamic and has vowed to disrupt the process with suicide
bombings.

“The problems facing the new government will be immense, and this may be the last chance that
the country’s existing elites have to solve them,” said Anatol Lieven, a professor at King’s
College in London and author of a book on Pakistan.

“If the lives of ordinary Pakistanis are not significantly improved over the next five years, a
return to authoritarian solutions remains a possibility,” Lieven wrote in a column in the
Financial Times yesterday.

Power cuts can last more than 10 hours a day in some places in Pakistan, crippling key
industries such as textiles, and a new International Monetary Fund bailout might be needed
soon.

The army stayed out of politics during the five years of the last government, but it still sets
the nuclear-armed country’s foreign and security policies and will steer the thorny relationship
with Washington as NATO troops withdraw from neighboring Afghanistan next year.